House fire lays waste to everything saved by longtime collector

The Daily Inter Lake

The tour traveled through three floors of charred wood and ashes - and 48 years of burnt memories.

"My whole life right here - it's a shambles," murmured Lanny Scovell, 65, a retired City of Kalispell worker.

Scovell, his black Labrador, Tango, and nephew Dusk Scovell recently led visitors through the 82-year-old house at 110 S. Meridian Road.

Second floor, ground floor, basement - destroyed shelves everywhere. The top floor and basement were reachable only with ladders.

It was his home for 48 years - seven rooms gutted by flames that escaped from a basement wood stove on Dec. 13.

Thousands of books, magazines, records, compact discs, VHS tapes and DVDs were lost.

Burnt. Waterlogged. Warped. Plastered and fused together in black rectangular blobs.

All uninsured.

"I don't throw away stuff," Scovell said. "People'd say I'm a pack rat. I tell 'em I'm a collector."

A hunter and fisherman, Scovell subscribed to lots of outdoor magazines since he was a kid, as well as Newsweek, Sports Illustrated and Playboy - all saved in unbroken sequences stretching back to the 1950s and '60s.

"It's just toast," he said.

A drenched sticky survivor was an Aug. 14, 1961 issue of Newsweek with the cover addressing Roger Maris' and Mickey Mantle's assault on Babe Ruth's home run record. The cover lines read: "Home Run Year … Target 60."

Scovell currently subscribes to roughly 10 magazines.

And he reads books - a lot.

Hardback copies of Jack London, Louis L'Amour, Zane Grey, Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy are now just ashes.

One basement room - now with a black sagging ceiling threatening to collapse into it - used to be a cozy, carpeted nook with rifles in one corner and walls of books, magazines, DVDs and tapes.

"It was comfortable - like a library," Dusk Scovell said.

His uncle said: "I'd find somethin' that'd pique my interest, and before I'd know it, I'd be down here for three, four hours."

His tapes and DVDs reflected Scovell's reading interests. John Wayne and Alan Ladd starred in the films. The television DVDs were of Westerns; only a damaged collection of "Have Gun, Will Travel" episodes was still recognizable.

Scovell was luckier with his record collection. His favorites - old country artists such as Hank Williams, Kitty Wells and Ernest Tubbs - could be saved. Many of the warped and destroyed records were Motown and pop 45s, including numerous Supremes songs, that were merely stashed away to possibly trade someday.

The house's wood stove had been used uneventfully for decades when Scovell tossed a bunch of cardboard into it on the evening of Dec. 13.

The flames apparently escaped into an opening between the furnace and a wall. On the ground floor, Scovell smelled smoke and followed the odor to the basement library where the wall next to the furnace was on fire. He ran out to get a water hose. By the time Scovell returned to the basement, the room was engulfed in flames.

He ran to a neighbor to call 911. The Kalispell, West Valley, Smith Valley and South Kalispell fire departments responded and put out the flames. But the house ended up uninhabitable.

Scovell believes he has salvaged about 10 percent of his collections.

Scovell is self-sufficient and is not the type to ask for help. But several friends insisted that he accept help this time.

His friends set up a relief fund at Valley Bank to receive donations to help Scovell rebuild. The Red Cross and Salvation Army have also helped out.

Meanwhile, Scovell still lives at 110 S. Meridian Road - only now in a 22-by-42-foot garage shaped like a Quonset hut. Two-thirds of the floor space is filled with salvaged items, mostly boxes of records. The rest holds a couch that doubles as a bed, a small television, a refrigerator, a hot plate, a desk and other stuff. A portable toilet is in the backyard. Showers are taken at friends' homes.

Scovell's house is scheduled to be demolished this weekend. Then he will review his finances and figure out how to build a one-story house on the same spot.

One thing puzzles Scovell. He keeps expecting anger and frustration over his losses to hit him.

But those emotions haven't haunted him so far. However, Scovell has made one decision - he won't try to resurrect his lost collections.

"No more collections 'cause at 60, it's not worth it."